Quote:
Originally Posted by Abner
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However, I'm pretty sure that there's no "exit" from the subway on the south, just a junction north of the Chinatown stop that allows trains coming from the south to switch onto the Loop tracks and vice versa. So the Red Line can run elevated, but the Brown Line can't run in the subway (unless it turns into a Dan Ryan train).
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There are two south portals from the State Street subway to the non-subway routes. There is the one just before Chinatown/Cermak that it normally uses now to connect to the Dan Ryan, and there is one just after Roosevelt that was the original portal which connects to what is now the Green Line. That second portal is what could be used to route the Brown Line through the State Street subway to the Orange Line (or the Green Line).
Another, unrelated, routing - if you're building things - would be to complete the west-bound portal from the Dearborn Street subway and run the Green Line through the Lake Street subway, turning onto Dearborn subway and then using the new Block 37 connector to connect to the State Street subway and up the Roosevelt portal to the Green Line tracks. It would put into use the "airport connector" under Block 37. Then the City could focus on an airport express as part of a West Loop Transportation system under Clinton utilizing mostly Metra routes, which would be faster and put people closer to the Metra stops. Part of that, too, could be to through-route more Metra routes, which would enhance the efficiency of Metra routing. Coupled with a subway loop created with a Clinton Street subway and the extra routing possible with a Clinton Street subway, and a Circle Line, the central area would be set for decades of growth. Bloomingdale Trail's ROW could also be dug under the river and routed into either the State Street or new Clinton subways, adding central area train frequency while drawing in more west neighborhoods, and the Pink Line routing could be changed to go west through the South Loop connecting with the N/S routes there.
These are big ideas with big price tags, but coupled with appropriate TOD zoning they would set up the Central area and surrounding neighborhoods for decades of a type of growth making cars a luxury and not a necessity, putting Chicago into the same league as any international city for transit purposes.